“You don’t sound convincing. But I know this is something you have to do. At least Hartford isn’t clear across the country. It’s just a few hours away.”
There was hope in his eyes. He didn’t want to let her go but he would. Part of her wanted him to make her stay. She’d prayed on her decision to leave. She’d gone back to the church seeking guidance. Pastor Balinski had left her with words of wisdom from the Bible: “Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.”
She needed to find her strength now. But was she really ready? Even reflection and helping Benny hadn’t completely convinced her. But Pastor Balinski insisted she would have to get back into her old routine and face what she feared most. She had to trust that his wisdom was right, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do.
“True enough. But…”
“But what, Teresa?” Dennis stood in front of her, his face accusing. “You keep running away. I know you want to talk to me. I can see it. But you’re doing it again. You’re dancing around the subject, ignoring the very thing that is causing you pain. What’s going to happen when you get back to Hartford and it’s all staring you in the face? How are you going to handle it then?”
“I’m not running—not this time. I stayed in Stockington Falls much longer than I planned as it is.”
“And why is that?”
“Because…because Benny needed me. I couldn’t just walk away from him.”
“Benny.” Dennis closed his eyes and clamped down on his bottom lip. “When are you going to realize you being here wasn’t just about Benny?”
“You asked for my help and I stayed.”
“And that’s all?”
“Yes.”
His dark eyes lost their entire luster in a single moment. It was the first time she’d seen Dennis look truly hurt. Concern, empathy, laughter, frustration: those were all emotions she’d shared with this man, emotions she’d brought out in him. Pain was a first, and she hated it.
She knotted her arms across her chest.
“No,” she amended. “It wasn’t the only reason.”
“You’ve got this almighty wall in front of you, Teresa. I’m here for you. Tell me what happened so I can make this easier for you.”
“Why is it so important to you?”
“Because it hurts you. That’s why. Because I love you. And because you’re using what happened as a way to keep yourself detached from us.”
She sputtered, shaking her head. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
Memories she didn’t want to think about bubbled up in her mind with alarming speed. Mariah’s tears over the telephone line when she’d heard David had died, her body lying limp in a bed covered with stuffed animals. A young woman in a little girl’s bed. Parents’ screams. An errant tear broke free and trickled down Teresa’s face.
Dennis’s hands were steady and sure on her shoulders. She clamped her eyes closed to hold back her emotions, to keep more memories at bay. She shook her head violently to keep the memories away. She didn’t want to go there. Why is he forcing me to remember this horror?
“I failed…her. What more do you want to know?”
“Tell me about her.”
“I can’t!”
The grip on her shoulders tightened as she tried to pull away. But Dennis was stronger and he swung her around to face him. “Yes, you can. Do it for yourself. Do it for us.”
She shook her head, pushing the nightmare away. Trying to forget Mariah and trying to forget the truth of what ultimately was her own failing.
She opened her mouth, her sobs making incoherent words. “I didn’t see it. I thought I knew what was going on, what Mariah needed, but I was wrong. It was my fault. Oh, God, Mariah! I’m so sorry!”
Sobs wracked her body, and even with Dennis’s arms wrapped tightly around her, Teresa’s body convulsed with emotion.
“She was so beautiful, so full of life. They loved each other, and I just…I just didn’t listen. I didn’t see what was really going on. She cut her wrists.”
“You didn’t do it to her. You can’t blame yourself for what she did.”
“What about David? I knew he was upset when he found out Mariah was pregnant. She told me. He was so angry that he might lose his football scholarship. He’d accused her of getting pregnant on purpose just to keep him in Hartford.”
“He’s a young kid.”
“He’s dead, Dennis. They fought bitterly about the baby, and then he took off in his car. He never should have been driving in the state he was in. He was killed instantly when his car skidded on black ice and hit a concrete pillar down the street from Mariah’s house.”
Dennis pulled her even closer. She wanted to hide there, but now that the dam had been opened, she felt a deluge of emotion that she couldn’t hold back.
“His teammates blamed Mariah. He had a promising future. David was so well liked. They all knew about the baby and the fight. You can’t keep that kind of gossip from happening. And they blamed her.”
“What did they do?”
“She couldn’t get away from it. They called her at all hours of the night. They texted her on the phone with horrible accusations. I knew she was upset, but I thought it was David’s death. They’d been dating so long. I thought her friends would be sympathetic. I didn’t know about the bullying. If I’d known, I would have…I would have taken better care to protect her. She was in such a fragile state.”
“Tell me what happened?”
Teresa couldn’t hold back the sobs. Her shoulders shook, and her heart ached from her release. “A few days after the funeral, she was walking home and some kids followed her. They taunted her. She went home, locked herself in her room and cut her wrist. Oh, Mariah!”
She allowed Dennis to hold her. She didn’t want to leave his arms. She didn’t want to ever leave him.
“You couldn’t have known, Teresa,” Dennis said, his mouth against her head as he spoke. “You can’t see everything. This wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m trained to see bullying. I should have known. It was my job, and I failed her.”
Her sobs continued. She held on to Dennis—unable or unwilling to let him go, she didn’t quite know. She only knew that if he didn’t hold her, keep the fragile fragments of herself together, she’d shatter completely. And the thought of that frightened her more than anything she’d ever known.
Dennis held on to her for what felt like an eternity, stroking her hair back away from her face, letting her bury herself in his arms.
“When are you leaving?” Dennis finally said into the silence.
She hesitated. She didn’t want to think about it just yet, even though they both knew it was coming.
“In the morning.”
She rested her head on his broad chest, feeling the rise and fall of it with each breath he took.
“Thank you, Dennis,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For being you.” A tear trickled down her cheek and fell to her shirt. “For caring for me the way you do.”
“I’m here. I’m always here, Teresa.”
Thank You, God.
“You’ve never asked me to stay, Dennis,” she said softly.
“We both know you can’t. Besides, I won’t make that same mistake twice.”
She lifted on her side, propping herself up on her elbow for support.
“It could be different.”
“It won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“I asked you to stay two months ago because I wanted you to help Benny. That much is true. I also wanted to know if this attraction that draws us to each other whenever we are together was something real. And it is. But it doesn’t change the fact that something happened back in Hartford that you’re having a hard time dealing with. I meant what I said, Teresa. I’m in love with you, and there’s nothing more I want than for you to stay here with me. But Pastor Balinski was right. You need to
go back to Hartford to resolve what happened there before we even have a chance at a life here.”
He sighed. “Don’t you see? You’re still running, Teresa. You didn’t come here for the right reasons, and you’re never going to know if this is where you really want to be unless you go back to Hartford. That was a hard pill for me to swallow when I realized it the other day.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully. Who knew better than him that love alone couldn’t keep her in Stockington Falls? And she did love Dennis. She hadn’t realized it until that very moment.
“If you really want to be alone tonight, I’ll understand,” Dennis said. “I don’t really want to leave you alone like this. I’d like nothing better than for you to come back to the house with me and just sit with me in front of the fire while I hold you.”
“I think I need some time.”
He nodded but didn’t say more. She knew what he wanted to hear. The words were still left unspoken.
And Teresa wanted to say those words. She wanted to tell Dennis that she loved him and that she didn’t want to leave behind what they had shared. But somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a little voice of reason that told her Dennis was right. She had to leave Stockington Falls and face what she’d run from in Hartford. So instead of telling Dennis everything she felt in her heart she listened to the door close behind him.
Chapter Seventeen
The frigid cold bit at Dennis’s warm skin. It was only a short walk up the shoveled path to the house, but to Dennis, it felt like he was walking in slow motion.
What was it they said about familiarity being a comfort?
All this time he’d been in Stockington Falls without Teresa, he’d been alone. Coming home from the clinic, he’d found comfort in the sameness and quiet of his life. As he opened the door and stepped into his lonely kitchen, he wondered where the comfort had gone.
After getting too little sleep, Dennis climbed down the stairs to make a pot of coffee. Filling the pot with water, he glanced out the window toward the studio and saw Teresa’s bags were packed and propped just outside the guesthouse door. The sun was blinding against the snow and stinging his already-swollen eyes.
She was leaving. That much was obvious. But was it just him? Or was it Stockington Falls all together?
Now this scene was vaguely familiar to him.
He yanked the back door open and stood in the doorway in his bare feet, a pair of sweatpants and a thin cotton T-shirt. A stab of pain pierced his heart when Teresa appeared at the door, locked it and, turning his way, caught his gaze. Her eyes said it all.
“Good morning,” he called out in as normal a voice as he could muster. It wouldn’t help either of them to make this goodbye more difficult than it was already going to be.
She smiled weakly, her sweet face drawn with the same emotion he felt deep inside.
“Do you have time for coffee?”
She hesitated a moment before nodding. “Let me just get these bags in the trunk, and I’ll be there.”
The walk down the hall to change into a clean shirt and then back to pull some coffee mugs from the dishwasher felt like a dead man’s walk. Teresa was leaving. And although he knew this day was inevitable, Dennis hadn’t counted on falling in love with her, hadn’t counted on it hurting so much.
She stood at the doorway in her coat and scarf, looking as beautiful as the day she limped into the clinic three months ago. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders and fanned out around the soft white knit of her scarf.
Lord, I’m really going to miss this woman. And he didn’t want to have to. He didn’t want to go back to a familiar quiet existence where he ate dinner by himself and came home to nothing but an empty house.
“Are you going to stop over and see Benny before you go?” he asked, forcing some sort of conversation into the strained silence.
“No. I’ve already said my goodbyes. I’ll stop by the resort really quick to say goodbye to Vanessa on my way out of town, but that’s all.”
“She’s going to miss you. Benny’s going to miss you, too, you know.”
“I know, but I’m confident he’ll be okay now that he’s agreed to go into counseling in St. Johnsbury. Last time he visited Chuck, I hooked him up with a counselor at the hospital. They seemed to hit it off well. Karen is committed to making sure Benny goes, and I think even Frank sees the difference in Benny.”
“That’s good news then.”
She shrugged out of her coat, propped it on the back of the chair and sat opposite him at the battered oak table where they’d shared countless breakfasts and dinners. Brief as her stay was, it was going to seem odd not seeing her car parked beside his.
“We still don’t know who those kids were that were playing chicken on the bridge New Year’s Eve. I wish we’d found out if only to find a way to prevent someone else from getting hurt. But I can’t do anything more to help clear up what happened.”
“A lot of people appreciate all you’ve done, Teresa. You were good for us here.”
“Thank you. I needed to hear that.” Her voice filled with regret. “I don’t want to leave here having you believe you mean nothing to me.”
Raw emotion pulled behind his smile. “I think I know.”
“Do you really? I don’t want you to just think it, Dennis. I want you to know how much you mean to me.”
“I know.”
She sputtered. “Please don’t be so ‘adult’ about this.”
“Trust me, if I thought throwing a tantrum would help, I’d do it to keep you here. That’s how much I want you to stay. But I also know you have to leave, and I don’t want to make it any harder for you.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen back in Hartford. I’m so confused, Dennis. I don’t know what you expect me to do. I… It would make it so much easier if you’d just ask me to stay.”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. You want me to give you permission to ignore what you ran from. As much as it hurts to see you leave, I won’t do that. No matter how much I love you, I know you’ll always wonder if you made the right decision. You can’t avoid confronting what you left behind. If you do, you may end up resenting me and leaving later when it’ll hurt far worse than it does now. I’ve been down that road. And quite frankly, it’s not one I want to travel again.”
“I’m not Donna,” she said tightly. “I’m not going to leave you a note and just check out.”
He smiled, even though his heart ached so much he wanted to rip it out of his chest. “No, you aren’t, but you do have to go back to your old life, face the things that drove you away, before you know for sure what you want and where you want to be. You have some unfinished business there. Even you know that. If you thought otherwise, you never would have packed those bags last night. If you stay now, all I’ll be is your crutch.”
She swiped at an errant tear on her cheek. Wordlessly, she pushed the chair away from the table and stood, leaving the untouched cups of coffee on the table.
She turned and slipped back into her coat. Her head was bent, and her silky hair fell in front of her delicate face, hiding tears he knew were there.
He wouldn’t say goodbye. Anything but that. And yet, he knew she was leaving and there was a strong chance that she would never come back and that he’d never see her smiling face tilt up to look at him as he held her in his arms.
“You’ll take care on the drive home?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice shaky, her hands fumbling with the buttons on her jacket.
Dennis dragged Teresa into his arms, needing to hold her, needing something more than this heartbreak that was raking his insides to shreds.
He covered her mouth with his, let himself selfishly take from her what comfort he knew kissing her would bring. He loved her, and it was killing him to let her go.
Without looking at him, Teresa pulled away and walked out the door. He fought the tremendous force pulling him to watch from the frosted window as Teresa drove
away.
Hartford was a long way from Stockington Falls—not just in miles but in atmosphere. Teresa had found it easy to meld into the groove she’d left over three months ago. There were sympathetic eyes and smiles from familiar faces greeting her the first few days at the high school.
Even Spencer had stopped by to see how she was doing.
“I’m back,” she’d insisted.
His gray hair finally winning over his blond, Spencer had stood in the doorway of her office, his arms knotted. He wasn’t buying it. But instead of telling her so, he’d just nodded his head, his smile masking his deep concern.
“What took you so long?” he’d asked.
She’d shrugged. “I got hung up.”
“It happens.”
Not to me, she’d thought.
That conversation had been a week ago, and her head still wasn’t in Hartford, even though she was physically going through the motions. Her heart was somewhere else.
The teacher she’d been subletting her condo to had moved out the week before Teresa had returned home. But she and her husband had liked her condo so much that they’d expressed interest in purchasing it as an investment if she was considering leaving permanently.
Was she? Teresa had given the idea some serious thought. Sure, she was going through the motions here in Hartford. Students paraded in and out of her office, her life becoming a normal routine again. No one understood how she could have ever thought Mariah’s death had been her fault. Logically, Teresa knew it wasn’t. At least now she knew. She was a good counselor and could make a difference.
Even in Stockington Falls.
On her second week home, she curled up on her sofa with a stack of magazines from the past few months that were delivered to her P.O. Box while she was gone, intending on getting back to business. One page, and then the next and then the next, failed to hold her attention. Her mind kept wandering to cold Vermont nights and hot spiced cider as she curled up on the sofa with Dennis Harrington.
She closed her eyes and tossed the magazine to the coffee table. Even the bright colored brocade fabric she’d spent so much time choosing when she bought her living-room set suddenly seemed pale next to the memory of the overstuffed sofa Dennis had in the living room of his farmhouse.
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